Each week in San Francisco and in urban neighborhoods across the Bay Area, residents dutifully separate aluminium cans, glass bottles and plastic jugs from their garbage and roll their recycling bins to the curb on trash day.

But before the garbage trucks even arrive, many bins are picked clean by people who take the bottles and cans to a recycling center - or a wholesale, black-market collector on the corner - and turn the trash into cash.

The practice is illegal and inflates garbage-collection rates. The thieves often leave behind a mess on city sidewalks.

But police in San Francisco, Oakland and other Bay Area cities told Chronicle Watch that although they understand residents' annoyance with recycling rip-offs, chasing down the thieves is not a high priority.

"We see it and we know that we want to make an effort to stop it, but when you start your shift and you have A (priority) calls and B (priority) calls, you have to handle those first," said Officer Carlos Manfredi, a San Francisco police spokesman.

Most metal, glass or plastic containers can be redeemed in California for a nickel or a dime apiece at recycling centers. Some thieves collect only by the shopping cart, but police and garbage companies say there are larger-scale operations that pay people to collect from residents' trash cans, then deliver the booty to recycling centers themselves by the truckload.

"It is certainly an issue of note," Adam Alberti, spokesman for San Francisco trash collector Recology, told Chronicle Watch. "It is probably one of the top complaints the company gets from its ratepayers."

Officials at Waste Management, which collects garbage in most cities in the East Bay, agreed that recycling theft is one of their customers' main irritants.

Alberto Reyes, who lives in the Lower Haight neighborhood of San Francisco, said he's seen people race from the end of his block to be the first to his blue Recology recycling bin when he rolls it out on Monday nights.

"Most of the time they're pretty considerate," Reyes said. "But when they just tip over the bin and dig through like raccoons, I get pretty pissed."

Alberti said recycling robbers cost residents money, because the thieves - not the garbage company - get the state reimbursement for the bottles and cans.

"It is a nuisance factor since it is always done in the middle of the night, there's a security factor since people put bills in the recycle bin, and there is actually a monetary factor," Alberti said. "This is a direct loss to ratepayers. They have to subsidize what we are not getting from the recycling."

A man who would only identify himself as "Pretzel" said he collects bags of bottles and cans from residential blue bins most nights. He makes a few bucks each day and tries not to leave a mess, because that just "gets people all upset," he said.

Pretzel said he's been hassled by the cops for taking recycling only once in his five years in San Francisco.

What's not working

Issue: Across the Bay Area, those looking for extra cash raid residential recycling bins to steal bottles and cans that can be turned in for cash. The thieves often leave trash strewn on the sidewalk, creating an eyesore. Recycling theft is also illegal and inflates garbage bills.

What's been done: Police in Oakland and San Francisco make an effort to stop recycling thieves, but acknowledge that other crimes are a higher priority.

Chronicle Watch

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